


Spaces Between

by mystiri1



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, New Game Plus Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-31
Updated: 2010-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiri1/pseuds/mystiri1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth's been waiting a long time for this... Post-game. A meeting in the Lifestream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spaces Between

He wasn’t quite sure when he noticed that the Voices had stopped.

There was still the quite murmur of the Lifestream, but that was different. The voices there mingled together, a constant stream of thoughts and memories, human and animal. It was hard to call a mixture of such wildly different sounds a harmony, but they fit together in a way the Voices never could. Never would. The Voices were harsh, as alien as their progenitor, Jenova.

He raised his head, uncurling a little, and listened.

Nothing.

He couldn’t hear any of the clones, whose thoughts were at times so strident he felt like they were shrieking in his ears. _Mother_, they cried out, _here I am! Please, Mother!_ Always yearning for something they didn’t understand, a sense of acceptance, of belonging, and never realising it for the lie that it was. Sometimes he thought he should say something, tell them, but they pulled at him so, wanting him to be something he wasn’t. Wanting to be what they thought _he_ was.

Never realising that all this time he’d been hiding, curled in a little ball like a child afraid of the dark.

It had been Hojo who’d first taught him to hide. Back in the labs, where he’d been poked and prodded and handled. ‘Tests’ that seemed more like torture to a small child who’d just lost the only parental figure he’d known with Gast’s disappearance. Even knowing what he did now, that Gast had been only slightly better than Hojo – a distinction made primarily because Sephiroth was quite sure that Hojo qualified as clinically insane – it had been devastating to find himself simply abandoned to the care of someone whose very demeanour he found frightening. For Gast he would have willingly endured the tests; under Hojo they were something to be survived. And he’d found he could shut part of himself away: the part of himself that wanted to run and hide and cry could do so, and nobody would ever know.

It served him well in later years, too, as he endured the Wutai campaign, and other horrors at ShinRa’s behest. Nobody ever knew the General felt anything in regards to the orders he was given, until –

He flinched, unwilling to follow that thought where he knew it would take him. But it was impossible to ignore, as he remembered what had bought him here. Now he hid for real, the only part of himself he’d been able to save from the tender mercies of his so-called Mother cocooned behind the strongest shields he could erect. The Lifestream that flowed around him was a source of constant energy for reinforcing them, and he floated along in its multi-hued depths like a bubble.

Although it had stopped Her from finding him, he hadn’t been able to shut Her out. No, he found that the parts of him She had stolen, his flesh, the genetic memory contained therein, were still somehow connected to him, and he was made to watch while She used both for Her own purposes. While the few people that he had cared for suffered at ‘his’ own hands.

Even unaware of his continued existence, when She truly exerted her power, Jenova pulled him along like an unseen passenger, forced to a front-row seat. He didn’t dare let himself react as he watched Cloud and his friends defeat Her, again and again, because even in defeat, She remained. He didn’t dare let himself cry out in relief as She failed once more, or in pain as She did so using his face.

He’d died so many deaths now, and nobody grieved for any of them.

But this most recent time, it had been the strongest of the clones he’d felt fighting, one of Hojo's 'special projects' that had gone down first under Jenova’s influence, then under Cloud’s sword. And since then there had been . . . nothing. Just this odd silence.

Could it be She was truly gone at last?

He waited. Waited for the sibilant whispers that would tell him he was wrong, that She was just biding Her time for another attempt at annihilating all life on Gaia. His time sense was skewed, he knew this, but it still felt like he waited an eternity before he let himself start to hope. Start to believe.

If Jenova was gone . . .

If Jenova was gone, then what? He was still dead, still hiding out within the Lifestream, the constant flow of all life on Gaia. A flow that would surely reject him, the last remnant of an alien abomination. Maybe, if the planet had succeeded in eradicating the infection that was Jenova, it could do the same to him? A final death.

The promise of oblivion was a sweet one, and it had him relaxing his shields, waiting for the coup de grace to strike him down. It took some effort, as so much had depended on holding them steady for so long. He was trembling by the time he felt the ‘space’ he was in grow larger, and he didn’t know whether it was in trepidation or effort.

He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, and looked at the shields. They thinned as they expanded, until they took on the transparent, shimmering colours of a soap bubble. With a sudden pop, they gave way entirely, leaving him standing in an empty, white space.

Sephiroth waited.

After awhile, he wondered just how much not having a body or any contact with the physical world skewed his time sense. It was possible that barely any time had passed at all, but it didn’t feel that way. Yet surely something should have –

“Seph?”

He froze, terror washing through him. But the Voices had never called him that. ‘My Son’ was what She called him, emphasis on the possessive. ‘Brother’ was the demanding cry of the clones. That name, that voice was somebody who had often left him feeling nervous and uncertain, but never afraid.

He turned and Zack was standing there, looking at him with an expression of astonishment. He watched as he saw a familiar smile curve those lips, even as the violet eyes took on a stronger sheen than normal. The charcoal-clad figure took a couple of tentative steps towards him, and the smile became a full-fledged grin. “It really is you!”

The steps became a rush, which Sephiroth recognised as the prelude to a fierce hug. It had taken him some time to get used to Zack’s habit of hugging people he liked – and this time was just as disturbing when he suddenly realised that Zack was taller than him. He flinched back, a startled sound escaping him, and his friend paused.

He looked down, and realised that his coat was hanging loosely on his frame, the black leather pooling around his feet. He lifted one hand to his chest, and realised it was smaller, the fingers shorter than he remembered. The calluses were missing.

“You look like you’re about 10 or 11 years old, in case you were wondering.” Zack’s tone was casual, as if it were no big deal his former commander looked like a child. “At first I thought maybe you were one of the clones, but then,” he shrugged as Sephiroth looked at him again, “they always lacked something.”

“Like what?” he asked, feeling awkward as the words came out somewhat higher than he was used to.

“I dunno. _Something._” Zack grinned again. “Aeris says that what you look like here is about the real you, not what you look like on the outside. It’s about how you see yourself.”

Sephiroth laughed, mockingly. “And I see myself as . . . a child wearing clothes that don’t fit properly.”

“Hey. Don’t knock it.” Zack stooped, cupping Sephiroth’s chin in one hand. He placed a light kiss on upturned lips. “I think you look cute.”

“Cute?” Sephiroth raised his hand to his lips as Zack pulled back. He remembered that feeling, the taste of someone else’s lips on his.

_Zack’s eyes, both cautious and confident, smiling at him as he laced fingers through silvered hair. “See, that didn’t hurt at all, did it?” Those hands, sliding across skin with astonishing gentleness. Thorough as they explored his body, with an interest that had nothing to do with science or warfare, just . . . want._

“What’s wrong with cute?”

Sephiroth looked at Zack again, and realised it wasn’t quite so far up anymore.

“You like Spike, don’t you? And even now, I still can’t think of a better way to describe him than 'cute'.”

_Shy blue eyes staring up at him with an expression of surprised pleasure as he copied Zack’s favourite gesture, rubbing his hands through that tousled blonde hair. Those same eyes drifting closed, a flush decorating Cloud’s cheeks as he squirmed and moaned, lips wet and parted and just begging for attention – _

A new memory struck him like a bucket of cold water.

_Blue eyes staring at him in accusation and betrayal, and he wasn’t able to say anything, couldn’t say, 'I’m sorry,' as they drew closer, the slight blonde forcing himself up the blade that pierced his body to reach him. Angry, determined eyes facing him once again, knowing that one of them would die, and it wouldn’t be him._

Violet eyes, wide with shock and hurt as Sephiroth’s voice hissed an accusing “Traitor!”

“How can you – How can you be so happy to see me after all that I’ve done?”

Zack shook his head. “That wasn’t you. I know you, and that’s not something you would do.”

It was hard to tell if the sound Sephiroth made then was a sob or a laugh. “You’re so sure?”

“Yes.”

That was so very like Zack. No hesitation, just complete, unwavering faith in somebody he considered a friend. Or more. Sephiroth wished he could feel worthy of such regard. “No. I was there. That was me, that time. I was... so angry. At everybody.” At everything. He'd wanted the world to go away, and he hadn't cared how.

“You weren't yourself,” Zack said firmly. “She was messing with your head.”

Sephiroth opened his mouth to argue again, and gave up when he saw the stubborn glint in Zack's eye. There was no arguing with him when he got that look. Zack would believe what he wanted, even if it was far better than Sephiroth deserved. It didn't matter. Sephiroth knew the truth.

“Zack?” a voice called from out of the nothingness. “Did you find him?”

“Over here,” Zack called back, and Sephiroth wasn't surprised to find the white space under his feet had somehow become grassy earth, dotted with clumps of wildflowers. He could even smell it: warm, damp soil, the unmistakable scent of green things, and the lighter, sweeter notes of flowers in full bloom. He hunched his shoulders a little, bracing himself for the person he knew was coming, somebody who surely wouldn't be so forgiving as Zack.

Aeris paused a few feet away from them both, and leaned forward to give Sephiroth a critical look, hands behind her back. Then she smiled, an impish grin Sephiroth had only seen once or twice. “You're right! It is him!”

“Of course I'm right!” Zack declared. “I was trying to explain to him that I know the real Sephiroth when I see him, even if he's shrunk a little.”

Aeris nodded seriously. “The real Sephiroth is much prettier than those fake ones.”

“That's tr- Hey! You're not supposed to call guys pretty, Aeris! We're sexy, or ruggedly handsome, or just plain hot,” Zack complained.

“But Sephiroth is pretty,” she pointed out.

“That's beside the point!”

It felt all too familiar to Sephiroth, watching the two of them together. There was something about them that fit perfectly, as if they were two halves of a whole, and that whole was warm and bright and too perfect for the rest of the world to look upon. The irony was that he'd only met Aeris in Zack's company twice. But that feeling, the sense that they somehow belonged with each other, had stuck with him, leaving him wistful and a little envious, because he was sure he wouldn't fit with anyone like that.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Aeris slid another bright look his way. She reached out to grab one of his hands, then stepped up, so that they stood nose to nose. Sephiroth could feel himself going slightly cross-eyed from trying to meet that stare so close to his own.

“This is definitely much more convenient,” she said firmly. “I can reach now.”

_“So this is Sephiroth?” Aeris asked, green eyes dancing. They were quite a different shade from his own, and lacked the glow of mako. But they caught the shafts of light that shone down through the gaps in the roof, so that they still looked bright and warm even in the dim light of the church. “You are tall, aren't you? I guess I'll just have to make sure you sit down a lot.”_

_Sephiroth blinked at her, confused by the sudden turn the conversation had taken. “Why?”_

_“So I can play with your hair, silly! I can't reach the top of your head when it's way up there!”_

Sephiroth blinked, and suddenly he was looking at Aeris from a vantage of several inches height.

“Oh, that's _so_ not fair!” she pouted. But she rose up on her toes with a laugh, and placed a light kiss on his cheek. “Welcome back.”

“I... uh...”

“Don't worry, I can still braid your hair. There's none of that nasty paperwork to keep you busy now. We'll have lots of time.”

Sephiroth sent Zack a pleading glance.

“Don't look at me, she's been complaining that I won't grow my hair out,” Zack said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Like I wouldn't look ridiculous with hair halfway down my back.”

“Your hair is ridiculous,” Sephiroth muttered, an old argument between them.

“Says the guy who's soon going to be wearing braids.” Zack smirked, then blinked. “There's still somebody else that wants to see you, though. I can't believe I forgot!” He dashed off, leaving Sephiroth staring after him in bewilderment.

“Don't worry,” Aeris assured him. “There's nobody here that wants to hurt you.”

Sephiroth wasn't so sure about that. Even if Jenova was completely gone from the Lifestream – something he still had a hard time believing – there were still all those people who had been hurt by him, even before Jenova took him over. He'd always led his army from the fore, had crushed a nation and numerous other small uprisings, then he'd murdered Nibelheim and tried to destroy the world. Aeris and Zack might have been forgiving of the latter incidents, but as Sephiroth saw it, they were probably a minority, and overly generous one at that.

“Why aren't you angry at me?” he asked her. “If I had been stronger, if I hadn't let her take control of me, you'd still be alive.”

“Nobody is strong enough to do everything alone, even if they try. You can't blame yourself for that,” Aeris said after along moment, her eyes quiet and sad. Something made him wonder if she was thinking of herself, as well as him. “And you never got enough practice at relying on others.”

“If I'd trusted Zack -”

She placed two fingers on his lips. “He doesn't blame you, either. Yes, it hurt him, but if anything, he thinks he should have done more, been able to fix it somehow.” She laughed. “I seem to have a habit of surrounding myself with men who think they can do anything, then take it too hard when they fail. They never see all the amazing things that they do accomplish.”

Sephiroth knew there were plenty of things in his past others would consider achievements, but they'd never felt like something to be proud of. He'd been _made_ that way: stronger, faster, more than anyone else, and the only person who could really claim credit for any of it was Hojo. And Sephiroth would rather submit to Wutaian torture techniques than say anything in praise of that madman.

Aeris shook her head at him. “At least I'll have plenty of time to convince you both.”

“Time?”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Eventually, everyone who enters the Lifestream also returns to the living world, but there are a few things that still need to be taken care of. And I thought it would be nice if we went back together, don't you? So, we're going to have some time first.”

Sephiroth considerd the possibility of going back, of living a normal life and growing up with Zack and Aeris. His thoughts shied away from the other name that came to mind, but it was still... nice. Idyllic, if compared with the life he'd known.

As if he'd heard them, the sound of Zack's voice carried to them. “Come on, I promise you'll love it. It's a great surprise. Have I ever led you wrong?”

“That time with the chocobos?” another voice replied. Sephiroth stiffened.

“That was an accident, I didn't know that they were going to all go after you like that. And it was cute, Spike, really.”

“One of them _sat_ on me, Zack,” Cloud complained as he emerged from the whiteness, being towed along by Zack's grip on his arm. “And you kept laughing like-”

He came to a halt as he saw Sephiroth, his eyes going wide. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Sephiroth flinched.

Aeris gave his hand a squeeze, then moved out of the way. Zack likewise seemed to decide that Cloud could manage on his own, stepping off to one side.

Sephiroth braced himself as Cloud slowly walked towards him, and quietly wished that he could shrink again, the better to hide himself away. When Cloud stopped in front of him, the difference in heights was less than he remembered not because he was shorter, but because Cloud had grown. Unable to help himself, Sephiroth looked him over hungrily, seeing him through his own eyes for the first time in seven years. Cloud had added only a few inches to his height, but he'd grown into the muscle his stature had originally promised, the stocky build of someone whose family had lived in the mountains for generations. His eyes glowed with the light of mako treatments, the mark of the SOLDIER he'd always dreamed of being, only they had come with a far higher price than any of them had wanted. They were still blue, though, and looked at Sephiroth with the same uncertainty Cloud had shown when he was just sixteen, and meeting ShinRa's notorious Silver General for the first time.

Sephiroth held himself still, waiting for the anger to come, but it was pain that brightened Cloud's eyes.

The younger man took a step forward, slid his arms around Sephiroth in a silent embrace. It was nothing like one of Zack's hugs; Zack hugged with great enthusiasm and glee, squeezing the recipient as if he could convey everything he was feeling just by holding tight enough, and usually talking a mile a minute just in case that failed. Cloud's arms slipped around him as if Sephiroth was fragile, breakable, body moulding itself against the larger frame. He buried his face in the opening of Sephiroth's coat, and after a moment, Sephiroth felt something hot and wet against his skin.

Slowly, awkwardly, he raised a hand to rest lightly at the middle of Cloud's back.

It felt right, somehow, and he knew that if he checked now he would find himself precisely as he remembered, from the barely visibile scars on his body to the fall of his coat around his calves. But it was more than that; it was Cloud who felt right, held here like this, as if he... fit.

The feeling made him marvel, made something small and uncertain inside himself uncurl, reach out as if to touch -

Memory made him stiffen.

All the time that had passed between then and now made no difference: Sephiroth remembered Nibelheim with a painful clarity time had done nothing to diminish. There was the strange feeling of unease he'd felt upon arrival, the unexplained familiarity of the town, and it was enough to make his shoulders tense even now. The first trek up to the reactor, when the bridge had broken and they'd lost Jorgesen, the other Regular who had accompanied them, to the fall. He remembered the horrors of the reactor, and how he'd all but fled down the mountain in search of answers. That they had been lies hadn't been apparent to him in his distress. He had found the damning evidence that he was not human, the measure of difference he'd always secretly feared borne out in bound leather journals, and he had believed it. He remembered the accusations, the feeling of betrayal.

He remembered the rage boiling up inside him, hot and bitter as he consigned the village of Cloud's birth to flame and ruin. He remembered the fight in the reactor, that had seen both Cloud and Zack nearly dead at his hands.

Sephiroth remembered the acrid scent of mako and smoke in his nostrils, the way the taste of ash and chemicals lingered on his tongue as Cloud slid a blade through him and shoved him back into the reactor's surge pool, the look in those blue eyes etched into his memory along with the searing burn of unprocessed mako as it closed over him.

Cloud flinched back at the sudden tension under his grip, and Sephiroth felt it as the damnation it surely was until stricken blue eyes raised to meet his, and in a strangled voice Cloud gasped out, “I'm sorry!”

“Don't apologise.” The words were almost automatic. How many times had he and Zack said that to Cloud, who was all too willing to accept the blame for everything from a simple mistake made during his training to the wilful cruelty of others? The words were almost too normal for the circumstances.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Sephiroth pointed out, his throat feeling an unusual tightness. It was simply because he was unaccustomed to apologising for anything, he told himself. He wasn't sure he wanted to do so now, either, as it felt perilously close to making excuses. “If anything, I should be apologising to you.”

“That's not – You didn't – I kept killing you, and even though it wasn't you, I still -” Cloud's voice caught again, the words tangled and desperate, and uncertain what else to do, Sephiroth drew him back against his chest. It made _him_ feel better, anyway.

It was strange, but even though Cloud had grown, it still felt the same when he held him like this. Cloud was warm and solid in his arms, too real for a place that was only thought and memory. Sephiroth bent his head to brush a cheek against the soft spikes of Cloud's hair, and could smell the scent of the shampoo he used. “I am sorry, Cloud.”

Cloud's arms tightened briefly, and he muttered an epithet into Sephiroth's chest that he usually reserved for Zack. “Idiot.”

Sephiroth didn't say anything. That was the biggest difference between Zack and Cloud, in his mind. Zack wanted everything to be said, laid out where everybody could see it. Sephiroth had never learned how to do that, and he felt awkward even trying. But Cloud had always been content with silence, as long as it came with a gentle touch; he had plenty of things he couldn't find the words to say, either. And while Sephiroth had questions he wanted to ask, things that he wanted to know, he'd always been satisfied with the fact that Cloud's eyes were honest and expressive, mirrors to everything he was feeling. He rested his head against the top Cloud's and thought, tentatively, that maybe they _did_ fit together.

“Right, so if he's sorry, and you're sorry, and we're all agreed that nobody's got anything to be sorry about, then we can all move on and talk about happier things, huh?” Zack declared, and Sephiroth's lips twitched in a smirk as Aeris promptly elbowed his second in the ribs.

Something suddenly occurred to him, Cloud had received Jenova cells amongst his other treatments, and if Jenova was truly destroyed, gone forever, then... He looked down at Cloud in alarm. “If you're here, does that mean that you're -”

“Dreaming,” Cloud interrupted. “I'm not dead, just asleep. Aeris brings me here, sometimes.”

“Good,” Sephiroth breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't like thinking that perhaps one of his clones had finally succeeded in taking Cloud with them.

Cloud blinked, and his head angled as if he heard something they didn't. He stepped back, Sephiroth releasing him somewhat reluctantly. “I have to go. That's my alarm.”

“Already?” Zack protested. “It's too early.” He shook his head. “Spike, you work too hard. Being your own boss means you can sleep 'til midday, you know.”

Cloud smiled as he shook his head. “Not all of us find getting up in the morning to be as difficult as you do, Zack. And I like my job.”

“But still, you have to go so soon?” Zack grumbled. “You only just got here.”

“I would like it if you stayed awhile longer,” Sephiroth added, and immediately felt bad for saying it when Cloud's smile faded. He took another step back, as if to place a little more distance between them, eyes dropping to the grassy earth on which they stood.

“I told you,” Aeris said quietly, “there are still things that need to be taken care of.”

Zack sighed, his eyes unsually sombre for once. “Yeah. There's no telling how many other messes ShinRa's left behind them.” He shifted his feet a little awkwardly. “Sorry, Spike.”

Cloud dipped his head in acknowledgement. He didn't look up, though, and Sephiroth placed a finger under his chin, lifting it until he met blue eyes full of quiet misery. It was unfair, he thought, that Cloud should be left behind to clean up the mess made by a company Sephiroth had given his life to, unfair that the Planet – that _anybody_ \- should ask more of him than he had already given. He felt a small curl of rage rise in him, heated and flame-bright, and pushed it down firmly. If Aeris and Zack thought this was necessary, if Cloud thought it necessary, then he should do nothing to make it more difficult, even if he wanted Cloud to stay.

_Would you wish him dead?_ he asked himself, because Cloud did still have a life, and it was selfish in the extreme to want to take him from it. _You've taken enough already._

“We'll wait for you,” he promised. “I'll wait.” It wasn't a difficult promise to make. Cloud smiled in response, and if it wasn't an entirely happy expression, Sephiroth was at least reassured that Cloud believed him.

“I'll be back,” Cloud assured him in turn, then he... vanished.

Sephiroth's hand hung in mid-air a moment, bereft, before he let it fall to his side.

“He will be back,” Aeris told him softly, “but it's not good for him to spend too much time here. This place... It's not for the living. Not really.”

“Of course not.” Sephiroth could see the sense in that, could see the potential dangers. It didn't make it any easier, though.

“We can still keep an eye on him, though,” Zack said, cheerfully. “In fact, it's practically mandatory. The whole guardian spirits routine, right, Aeris?”

“Right.” She smiled brightly, and Sephiroth deliberately made himself relax, expression smoothing into something that was less unhappy. He didn't think it fooled anyone, but they pretended otherwise.

“So what do guardian spirits do, exactly?” he asked.

“Well, we watch over things, of course. And sometimes we can affect events, change things, but mostly there's a lot of watching.” Zack pouted, as he'd always been happier with more active assignments. “It's nice to look out for people you care about, though, like Spike.” He slid a sly look at Sephiroth. “No watching him in the shower all the time; Aeris says it's creepy.”

Sephiroth raised a knowing brow. “And how, exactly, did this rule come about?”

Aeris giggled, and Zack immediately raised his voice to defend himself. “It was only once or twice! I didn't do it all the time!”

He continued to protest his innocence, but Sephiroth wasn't really listening; he had already tuned him out, a skill born of long practice. There were certainly worse fates than spending his next life - the rest of his lives - with the three people he cared for most, the only people who had accepted him for himself, but he couldn't help thinking that one way or the other, an eternity of Zack was bound to feel like a very long time.


End file.
